


Starting with one step

by huntingosprey



Category: Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-18
Updated: 2012-12-18
Packaged: 2017-11-21 11:36:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/597268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/huntingosprey/pseuds/huntingosprey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A brief look at Emily pre cannon with an appearance of Paul Bendon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Starting with one step

**Author's Note:**

  * For [xylaria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xylaria/gifts).



_Documents, documents, documents,_ Emily cursed mentally to herself as she worked through the stack of data pads on her desk.  _How much damn paperwork can one inter-cave road rebuilding scheme produce, by all that's holy and infernal?_ She sighed deeply, feeling the weariness that surely went as deep as her DNA creeping around the edges of her perception.  Shoving back from the large desk, she stretched and glanced over at the other pile of paperwork, the one Paul had sent her for final review before the legislative crowd took ownership of it and rammed it through the last few committees and debates.  She sighed again, looking out at the hologram of the outside that filled her fake window in an attempt to give a small measure of normality to an underground bunker.  It was a luxury many didn't have.  Some children had never seen, let alone been out on, the surface of the planet.  Not, of course, that the reality up there bore any resemblance to the hologram any more.  It hadn't done for years either. 

 

Emily sank back into her chair and looked up at the blank ceiling.  Her eyes focused on a place she hadn't seen, open spaces, a real sky with real rain and real wind, not the artificial substitutes that was all the citizens of First Centauri had installed in the deep bubbles of rock in which they had sheltered for years.  To be able to walk under a real sun and to keep walking without having to worry about when you were going to hit a solid wall or fall down an amateur and illegal geothermal well...

 

A piercing trill of alarm shattered her daydreaming, followed almost immediately by many booted feet pounding down the corridor.  That was another thing Emily promised herself, there would be none of this strife and almost inter-tribal warfare that regularly erupted between groups of people with not enough to do and only just enough to live on.  In the new place, everyone would have enough to eat and drink, and enough work to keep them busy and fulfilled.  She and Paul had deliberately set up the charter and structure to ensure that everyone would have the chance to flourish.  Not, of course, that they were turning a blind eye to the possibility of trouble; after decades of war, neither of them were _that_ naive.  There were subtle and careful ways to diffuse trouble, and of course the careful screening of potential colonists beforehand would be a major help.  The fact that the world wasn't rich in industrial materials and – according to Paul - wasn't strategically located and should therefore be left firmly alone by all the big interest groups that promoted trouble as a way of ruling worlds, were all major factors in her choice of worlds to move to. 

 

Between them Emily silently vowed that she and Paul would make this new world a better place for all those who went with them, and all the generations that followed after them.  All the problems of highly developed, stratified and deeply divided society would be left behind them…not _totally_ of course – some of the attitudes would be an unseen passenger in the colony ships, but with careful management and no outside interference those attitudes would die within a few generations.

 

With that thought firmly in mind, she reached for the top pad of the Pern stack.  Right now they were more important to her than any road tunnel boring dispute.

 

\---A year later---

 

"So.  Here we are."

 

Emily looked up at Paul as he stood looking out at the three huge colony ships hanging in the void, a constant stream of supply shuttles going to and fro.

 

"At last," she replied.  "At times I did wonder if we'd ever make our escape."

 

Paul grinned over his shoulder at her.  "It bodes well for our ability to manage whatever comes our way out there. Given how many hurdles we've had to clear to get this far."

 

Emily laughed, and it still sounded rusty to her.  "I’ll be very glad to leave all the bureaucratic noise behind.  Nothing could be worse than all that."

 

Paul nodded vigorously and came to sit on the chair opposite her.  "I'm still waiting for them to drop the bureaucracy bomb to try and bind both of us here."

 

Emily grinned, allowing just a hint of the skilled and ruthless planetary Governor to surface.  "Have no fear of that, Admiral.  I took considerable pains to unweave the net of rules, regulations and paperwork that was trying to close round us."

 

There was a flash of approval, amusement, evaluation and respect in Paul's eyes.  "Glad to hear it, Governor," he replied in what Emily now recognized as his “on duty” voice.  Then the formal attitude dropped and he sighed, letting his own deep weariness show.  "Now it's just a case of hurry up and wait."

 

 _It looks wrong_ , Emily thought, _to see Paul Benden looking so small and tired.  Very, very wrong_.  She reached out and laid her hand on his arm.  "No need to worry, Paul.  The first of the people carrying shuttles lift tomorrow. We'll be under way by the end of the week, and then..."

 

Paul smiled at her.  "…and then we just have a fifteen year haul. Or a fifteen year _sleep_ in some cases."

 

Emily snorted at him.  "Well, _one_ of us has to be on top form when we land.  And trust me, refereeing all those different teams so they work together means I'll need all the sleep I can get!"

 

Paul laughed, and held up his hands in surrender.  "Rather you than me, Em.  I'm more than happy to stick to sorting out the logistic side of getting us down."

 

Emily nodded.  Once down the _real_ work would begin for both of them.  According to the charter they had a maximum of two years to get everything sorted out before they either had to submit to election or dissolve the centralized government.

 

"We can do it, Em.  How hard could it be?"  Paul's soft words broke through her thoughts.  "After all we've seen, done, and suffered in our lives - how _hard_ can it be to settle down and live in peace and safety?"

 

Emily looked out at the colony ships.  By the end of the week, she'd be aboard and asleep and on her way to the quiet life she'd dreamed about and promised herself since the first shell impacted the surface.

 

"Not that hard, Paul," she replied and refocused her gaze on him.  "Humanity used to live like that, and we can and will do it again."

 

A comfortable silence settled over the observation lounge as both Admiral and Governor watched the continuing preparations for their departure for that longed-for peace and safety on a new world.

 


End file.
